Last month, Right Now focused on rights issues and cultural shifts. Here, Right Now’s editorial team present 10 landmark cases that arguably shifted how rights are protected in Australia.
Chief Executive of Hanover Welfare Services, Tony Keenan, discusses how the introduction of Victoria’s Charter of Human Rights has affected the way the organisation provides services to people experiencing homelessness.
By James Petty. The question of human rights in relation to coercive treatment for substance use is, unsurprisingly, complicated. The concept of “addiction” exists within a complex web of legal categories, medical science, social values and cultural practices, all of which work to colour the way we view these issues. In 2010 the Victorian parliament […]
Offshore processing bill passes Senate The Senate has passed legislation which allows the offshore processing of asylum seekers who come to Australia by boat. The Government has said it is looking at getting the processing centres up and running on Nauru and Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island within a month. Gavin Marshall, a factional colleague […]
Government fails on child rights The Australian Human Rights Commission has found that Australia’s treatment of suspected people smugglers who said that they were children has breached international human rights law in a report released on Friday. The report An age of uncertainty reveal that between 2008 and 2011 Australian authorities gave little consideration to […]
By John Tobin. This article is part of our July focus on the rights of children and youth. Read our Editorial for more on this theme. For many of you reading this article the answer to this question may well be obvious – of course children’s rights matter. But is this view universally held within Australia or indeed […]
Yesterday, on 14 March 2012, the Baillieu Government released its response to the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee’s (SARC) review of the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006. The good news is that the Government does not intend to substantially weaken the Charter, which was a distinct possibility after SARC’s review essentially […]
This article is part of our February theme, which focuses on one of the great silences in the human rights conversation in Australia: Prisoners’ Rights. Read our Editorial for more on this theme. What challenges do prisoners with mental or cognitive impairments face when they are released back into society? Securing suitable employment has emerged as […]
Right Now’s Adelaide Rief spoke with Georgia Davis, Amy Sinclair and Stefanie Schweiger, students at ANU College of Law who have been a part of the Prison Issues Project, an initiative of the College’s Law Reform and Social Justice program. Right Now: It would be great if you could start by explaining a little bit […]
This article is part of our February theme, which focuses on one of the great silences in the human rights conversation in Australia: Prisoners’ Rights. Read our Editorial for more on this theme. In 2004 the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Legislative Assembly enacted the Human Rights Act, the first Bill of Rights to be passed into […]
This article is part of our December theme, which focuses on one of the least appreciated but most fundamental aspects of well-being: housing. Read our Editorial for more on this theme. Relative to international standards, Australia’s economic and political freedoms rank highly. Our standard of living is generally satisfactory. A nation of just 22 million […]
19 September 2011 Last Wednesday 14 September, the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee (SARC) of the Victorian Parliament tabled its final report on the review of the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and the Responsibilities Act (2006). If the committee’s recommendations are accepted courts will have “no role in enforcing human rights and providing […]